WHAT IS HINDUISM?
bodily, including our own bodies, is not itself anything
bodily, but is something essentially bodiless – like the
formlessness of space. How then do bodily things form
themselves in the first place? Because formless awareness
that we perceive as empty space is not in fact empty but is a
fullness of formative potentials. Such potentials – all
potentials – only exist in awareness, and do so as potential
shapes and forms of awareness. Formless awareness gives
birth to form from these potentials. As the formlessness of
space it shapes itself into bodily forms. Shakti is the very
power and process of actualisation of these potentials – the
bodiless, formless awareness of Shiva giving form to itself
into countless bodily shapes. We are such bodily shapes of
awareness. As such we are not only formed from divine
awareness space. We exist in that space as we exist in space
itself. And that space exists within us just as we exist within
it. We are each a unified space or field of awareness, our
bodies a mere boundary between the awareness we exist
within and the awareness that exists within us. To perceive
an object with awareness is to perceive it in its place – in
the surrounding space in which alone it stands out or ‘ex-
ists’. But look around at people – people you know and
people on the street – and you will see something different.
You will see from their bodies – indeed from the very look
on their face – that they do not sense themselves as existing
in awareness, just as they do in space. They feel their
awareness as something that exists only within their body’s